ONE MINUTE WORLD
by Rei-chan
Summary: Sixty seconds, and everything would return to normality. Sixty seconds, and he could go back to hating you... -- English version by Jenwryn--


**ONE-MINUTE WORLD**

Force of habit.  
How would you define it?  
Don't you find that the principle characteristic of an event which perpetuates itself daily is actually _our very incapacity to define it _in some way...?

Yours was a kind of ritual.  
The 'Morning Ritual'.  
Curious, that you're becoming aware of its presence only now that it's stopped repeating itself…

_The morning ritual…_  
You notice that it never had a name before now…  
You also notice that that sound of it brings to mind the natural light of the sun through the opened Venetians, the dark hands of the clock upon the wall, and the scent... the penetrating scent of chocolate, omnipresent in the very air of his room...

Stop for a moment and consider: did you ever tried to classify it in any way?  
No, eh..?  
But it's not a matter of laying blame, no.  
A habit doesn't have characteristics: it ceases to have them the moment it becomes one.  
Monotony wouldn't be monotony if it still managed to surprise you…  
And that event had borne out for so long already that it was as though it had been silently absorbed into a quiet parallel universe where not even so much as a corner links up to reason.  
A universe which is born, grows, and dies in the turn of a single minute.

Distant, distant…

Still, you were under the impression that eight o'clock in the morning would never have struck if it hadn't happened before; if you hadn't come first, crouched like a hamster in socks, to the door of his room, left deliberately ajar, eyeing, in the backlit glow, the person who hated you most in the world, intent on covering his bony, meagre body with a black top...  
Nothing could have shifted you from that spot.  
Only a sign.  
His sign...  
_The usual._

Dressed, he would turn towards the door, fully aware of your presence.  
Hand on his left hip. Legs spread to shape an A.  
His sullen eyes would meet with your own – as usual – utterly expressionless gaze.  
And eight o'clock still wouldn't have chimed…  
Not yet.  
Not yet…

He wouldn't lower himself that far.  
It was you who'd invaded enemy territory, after all.  
Therefore…

"Mello."

Yes, you said it.  
You had the strength to speak his name with your cawing, childlike voice.  
Only at that time and at that place.  
_Only because it was habit. _

He'd lift a strand of blond hair with a huff of breath, and turn.

"Come on, come in!"

There you were then.

He'd laughed the first time he'd seen you done up like that, so untidy...

He'd laughed with his friends, laughed 'til he'd fallen apart with it; laughed 'til he was all tears and gasping breath.  
But every mocking smile was soon washed away by the sheer _force of habit. _  
Even the funniest joke, repeated ad infinitum, won't make people laugh forever.

Hair ruffed by the pillow and _your damned finger._  
Shirt unbuttoned, and your trousers slipping from your hips…  
He'd even stopped asking you how it was that you managed to walk around without ending up in your underpants in front of the whole of Wammy's House.  
A question of habit – surely.  
_Question of habit._

He would wait for you to close the door behind you, and, if you'd ever forgotten, he would have reminded you sharply.  
Only when the door had closed then, _then_, your paradoxical little universe could begin.

Off with the countdown.  
Exactly one minute to eight.  
Sixty seconds, and everything would return to normality.  
_Sixty seconds, and he could go back to hating you..._

He kneels before you.  
No questions.  
No pearls of wisdom.  
No _'when will you learn to do it yourself!?'_

Only a '_stupid…_', or an '_idiot_...', for variety's sake.  
Said just so...  
Just so as to not get too far from reality.  
Just so as to remember that the person you have before you is _Mello who hates you so much._  
Just so as to remember that this is _a universe of only one minute._

He pulls your hair into place, in that way of his, using his open hand as a comb.  
His fingers stumble over a couple of knots, which he disentangles without a skerrick of mercy.  
You ignore the pain.  
You don't complain.  
You don't so much as breathe a word.  
Only after he's distanced his touch do you raise a hand of your own, moving it to twirl your white locks, which seem somehow dully numbed.  
You can still feel the weight of his hand even after its gone.  
You don't know how to describe it, and you don't want to.

A glance at the hands of the clock on the wall.

_Fifty seconds remaining…_

With a swift sweep of his thumbs he removes the residue of blue toothpaste caked upon your cheeks. When he realises that the business is more difficult than anticipated he licks his fingertips.  
Indelicate.  
Rather than removing it, though, it's almost as if he wants to smear it over the rest of your face.  
But this too is part of the _ritual... _

He pulls the drawstrings of your trousers tight, dragging them back upwards to your waist.

"_Your bum, Near. Trousers are made for covering your legs and your bum, LEGS-AND-BUM, dammit!"_

He'd said that the first time, or perhaps the second…  
But he hadn't repeated it again. Not out loud, anyway.  
Shifting your trousers to their proper position had also become an integral part of the ritual's repertory.

Another glance at the clock.

_Forty seconds remaining…_

Then, the shirt…  
The shirt was the _pièce de résistance._  
It was the only variable in that vicious circle.

You'd have played into overtime if you'd had the misfortune to put it on inside out…  
About three or four extra seconds, in that illogical world.  
It might have been prolonged even into the third or fourth strike, according to chance.  
Otherwise, the daily apocalypse was fixed for eight o'clock on the dot.  
A universe of a single minute.

Mello can take that enormous, rebellious shirt of yours, which you simply cannot tame on your own, and make it embrace your thin, white body…  
The buttonholes line themselves up, like little soldiers, in neat parallel with the buttons and, beneath the touch of his pink hands, they interlock themselves one after the other with an almost dizzying simplicity…  
Why is that people continue to view the capture of a button in a buttonhole as an easy thing, but the fitting-together of white pieces of a puzzle is supposedly extremely difficult…?  
You've never found an answer to that question.

_Twenty seconds remaining…_  
Still more three buttonholes to fill, and then you'd return to being his bitter nemesis.

"What day is it?"

You'd tell him which day it was.

"Wednesday."

Exactly. Today is Wednesday.  
_It would have been his turn._

"Last Wednesday you were first to the breakfast table. Today it's my go."

"Okay."

It was a sure thing that you couldn't leave the room together…  
What would that have looked like?  
Why would Mello help his rival get dressed?  
Why would Near have gotten assistance from his rival in the first place?  
Yours was a sort of ritual: the morning ritual.  
_And it was yours alone…_

_Ten seconds remaining…_  
Just one free buttonhole left.  
The ones at the peak of the collar and at the bottom of the shirt would be left open.

No-one does up all their shirt buttons.  
Some things that, by habit, just aren't done.

_Five seconds remaining…_

His blond head is just a few centimetres from your nose.  
You're rather under the impression that even his hair smells of chocolate…  
You wrinkle your nose; inhale, timidly, trying not to let him notice that you've leant over slightly, to bring your nostrils closer to his golden head.  
But you've leant too far.  
Instead of bringing your nose closer to his head, you've landed right on it.

"He—hey, hey.... hey! NEAR!"

_One second…_  
_One solitary second…_

_DONG...DONG...DONG....DONG.... _

And another four peals ring out before the silence.  
Exactly eight o'clock.

The end…  
The ritual has ended.  
The world explodes;  
And the pieces of your one-minute universe dissolve into nothing, just the same as they were formed sixty seconds ago...

You rub the spot on your head where Mello thumped you with a fist.  
You wonder if you'll have a lump later…

"What the hell were you thinking? HUH? Stupid— great— cotton-wool-for-brains!"

He changes colour completely.  
Unlike you, Mello has the kind of complexion which needs only the bare minimum of emotion to alter it.  
Moments like that he'd turn so red he almost seemed to be glowing.  
His embarrassment, served up on a silver platter for the whole world to see.  
How much he hated that.  
God, he hated that...

And you, you stare at that colouring like a moth drawn to the light.  
People don't like being stared at, Mello less than anyone.  
It doesn't help.  
Not in the least.

"Hey!? W-what are you _looking_ at?"

He hides his face behind the palms of his hands, fingers fanned outwards.  
Through the gap between his index and middle fingers he studies your enigmatic face, ready to go for your throat at the first glimpse of satisfaction in your eyes.  
…_he doesn't find a trace._  
He could never have found anything like that in you.

You don't answer.  
…_you're the most irritating of rivals, Near…_

He feigns indifference, regathering the shattered pieces of his honour which you, so deceptively, have dared to place under discussion.  
He snatches books randomly from his desk, advances towards the door and then proceeds to utter his classic, carefully-enunciated closing phrase,

"You'll be sorry if you tell anyone. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

It's not terribly convincing.  
But it's enough for him.  
You don't lie.  
_Ever. _

Besides, why would you tell?  
Why share something like this with somebody else?

Who on earth would be interested in the story of a wretched little universe that's created and self-destroyed every day in the space between 7:59 and 8:00 AM…?  
Who knows if it ever occurred to you to truly ask yourself that before…?  
…as if it had some importance, you ask yourself now…

–

"L is dead."

_And the sun has gone out._  
_Forever._

Not the one outside.  
Not the one visible to the eyes of the world.

You can feel it.  
It's distant.  
Physically distant.  
Mentally distant.  
But you can feel it.  
Its silent groan.  
Its way of saying goodbye…

Outside the window, a branch breaks, heavy with snow.  
Glass shatters.  
Something tears.  
_Irreversibly. _

The sun of your universe – which you'd never even recognised as one – won't shine anymore.  
Cold.  
Frozen.  
Dead.  
Everything bound in that phrase.  
_L is dead._  
_The hour of truth has come._

"It's fine, Roger… Near will be L's successor. Unlike me, he'll solve the case calmly and unemotionally, as if it were one of his puzzles. I'm leaving this institute..."

_Sixty seconds._  
_And everything is over. _

The chances of making him stop were as good as rekindling the light of the gone-out sun with a match.

"_Don't go…"_

_In the one-minute universe, you ran to him._  
_In the one-minute universe, you blocked his way._  
_In the one-minute universe, you stared at each other for sixty seconds and then, at the end of them, you took his sleeve and urged him to return. _  
_In the one-minute universe, he would have._  
_And, together, in the one-minute universe, you could have tried to relight it, that weak sun of your world, and then it might have lasted more than a measly sixty seconds..._

Nothing more than a self-deception you'd never pulled off.  
A fairytale that your mind tells, just to feel better.  
To feel less cold. To feel less empty.  
To feel less scratched by the lines that continue to underscore, merciless, the faded name of that unpleasant sensation clutching inside your chest.

...today is the first time you've replayed it like a film inside your mind...

Barren.  
It doesn't provide any of the emotions for which you're so parched.  
It doesn't compensate for anything.  
It was only useful for one thing.  
A thing which, either way, already has no importance...

You've lost the habit.  
Some time will pass, before you manage to find another capable of replacing it.

«Matt... Where is Near? He didn't come down for breakfast this morning...»

«.…..»

«Matt? …Did you even hear me?»

«.…..»

«I'm worried about that boy, Matt. He's not even in his room. You haven't seen him?»

«.…..»

«Matt? ...M-Matt, wait! Where are you going? I asked you a—»

«What about Mello?»

«Pardon?»

«Near'll be tucked up somewhere inside. But what about Mello?»

«.…..»

«Maybe it would be better to ask yourself where _he_ is, Roger, rather than worry about where Near's ended up.»

«.…..»

Roger had known that the fourteen-year-old's ticking-off would happen, sooner or later.  
It had been a stupid mistake to lower his guard now, right at the most inopportune time.

Definitely – a monumental error.

_You never would have said it..._

It's not a line of questioning worthy of one who just inherited the task of succeeding the world's best detective.

You could probably rise to the task, though, if only someone looked from the corner of their eye at the convictions which, like weeds, have taken root in your mind...

Which still doesn't touch upon the small fact that, in all truth, you never would have said it...  
Careful: maybe it would be better to make a distinction between that which you _wouldn't have said_ and that which you _wouldn't have wanted to say_.  
And either way, with him or without him, the minute hand had reached the top of the clock face and eight o'clock had chimed out, utterly indifferent, throughout the whole Institute, more than an hour ago.

It had chimed even here in this still-empty room.  
Still dark.  
Still ice-cold.

There weren't big differences, Near...

It was still exactly the same as all the other times...  
Unmade bed.  
Sheets crumpled at the end of it.  
Papers on the desk.  
Chocolate wrappers strewn everywhere.  
Dietary supplements. Phosphorous. Magnesium. Vitamin B. Valerian on the bedside table.  
It must have been difficult to focus on studying so late at night and then to try to sleep, plagued by the obsessive fear of not beating you even in class the following day...

And him?  
Well, if one were to include him in the differences, then yes...  
There were differences.  
_Substantial_ differences.

Your pants don't want to know how to submit at your hands, and so they hang at your hips.  
How many times have you already pulled them back up this morning? You've forgotten to count.  
The oval mirror, covered in a fine layer of dust, shows you clearly.  
Hair ruffled from the pillow and your _damned finger._  
Shirt unbuttoned, and toothpaste stuck to your dirty grey cheeks.  
You rub at it with the back of your hand.  
It dirties the sleeve of the shirt, which you put on inside out this morning.

One failure after another...

Thirteen years old.  
L's successor since yesterday.  
Capable of re-assembling a thousand-piece white puzzle in the space of one hundred seconds.  
Capable of noticing something precious only after you've irreversibly lost it.  
Exactly like the overwhelming majority of _regular_ human beings, Near.  
...exactly like all those who, in the morning, are capable of sliding the buttons of their shirts into their respective buttonholes _all by themselves. _  
…_one failure after another..._

...you've stopped considering the flow of time.  
You were protected by the clock.  
But you haven't looked at it since the chimes of eight o'clock this morning proved themselves so completely false, and disrespectful of your one-minute universe.  
Almost as if time itself considered your morning ritual with Mello worthless.  
Almost as if to stop _being rivals for sixty seconds were something terrifyingly insignificant_ in its eyes.  
...almost as much as it had been for you..

Truly, Near?  
That attitude is really, _truly_ unbearable...

You have a new puzzle today.  
A puzzle called _buttons and buttonholes. _  
Try and solve it!  
Mello was so good at it...  
Surely you don't want to surrender?  
Of course you don't.  
You're the new L, after all.  
You can't really be incapable of doing something so banal on your own, right?  
_...right...?_

"Near."

You become aware of Roger's presence only when he removes your hands from the row of buttons on your shirt, interrupting your new world made of darkness and buttons and in which, unaware, you have been confined.  
He wants to bring you back to reality.  
Tentative try.  
The neon of the light, switched on suddenly, irritates your senses.  
You screw up your eyes and close your mouth without making a sound.  
You press your back up against the wall.

"Near, you're bleeding!"

Not that really you care.  
Except that you hadn't even realised...  
But Roger hadn't lied.  
Your swollen hands, covered with warm, crimson liquid, are the first thing you see in the moment you decide to re-open your shadow-ringed eyes...

Later you realised that you'd spread your blood everywhere.  
All the fault of that damned finger amongst your hair...  
All the fault of that shirt with the impossible fastenings...  
All the fault of that one-minute world, the only _(not at all) personal object_ that Mello had decided to take away with him.

–  
It's stronger than you: you don't like it.  
You don't like it at all!  
You don't like it, dammit! YOU DON'T LIKE IT!  
It's terrible.  
It's obscene. It's indescribably monstrous!

Is this the world that others would foist upon you in substitution for the one you just lost?  
This misbegotten stopgap?  
No...  
Absolutely not.

You could have accepted the absence of the clock, after all, now the tick-tock has become so disagreeable to you.  
But it was inadmissible that the scent of chocolate had been substituted by the invasive and nauseating stink of disinfectant.  
It makes your stomach contort.  
And her? This little woman, in her nurse's uniform, about to imitate Mello's motions?  
Pathetic. You find her utterly pathetic.  
No.  
This aseptic universe does absolutely nothing for you.

Bloody as a butcher.  
Shirt.  
Hair.  
Face.  
Who knows how long ago your hands had begun to bleed.  
You really couldn't say.  
It's easy to be oblivious of a light pain when, inside, you're losing the battle against a much more oppressive force.

You don't pay the slightest attention to the fluffy babble the nurse has been vomiting at you since the moment you'd set your foot in the room.  
She'd cleaned your face with a damp towel, removing every residue of blood and encrusted toothpaste.  
Yes: that which Mello had removed by moistening his fingertips against his tongue...  
She'd tidied up your hair too.

And all the while, chitter-chitter-chatter...  
Her mouth hasn't stopped for a single second.

She stays for almost five minutes with your right wrist held between her hands.  
You hadn't liked _her expression_, when she'd removed the handkerchief that Roger had bound you with in the moment before bringing you to her: _you hadn't understood it_, and that was enough to make it even less agreeable to you.  
She'd raised an eyebrow when she'd looked at the little half-moon sores on your bleeding fingertips...  
_Perplexed._  
Now she looks at the traces of blood on your shirt buttons.  
Still some drops...

Bad omen.  
_This is what has been left in place of Mello's fingers..._

She returns to inspecting your hands.

"But Near... how did you manage to hurt yourself like this with your buttons?"

"…..."

You don't answer.  
You never had to answer a question like that with _him_.  
It's rhetorical.  
It annoys you.  
For some reason, it annoys you to death.  
You close your hand.  
Squeeze it into a fist.  
_That could be considered spiteful. _  
You don't care.

She sighs. Closes her eyes. Then stands.  
She moves away to fetch some disinfectant-drenched cotton wool, and opens a couple of cupboards in search of a box of bandages.

"Let's put some plasters on, shall we? It will only take a minute. Come on, take a seat over here and..."

_No. _  
_No, it's not okay._

She leads you to a chair, beside the trolley where everything is stored, and recommences her parrot's repetition of pseudo-reassuring phrases.

"Ne-Near!"

You hadn't foreseen the contact with the antiseptic.  
You pull your hand back, twisting it free of her grasp.  
It's almost as if you'd caught your fingers in the flame of a candle. You can't take it.  
You squeeze your eyes shut and groan, without meaning to, when she seeks to take hold of your wrist again.  
She tries to calm you down.  
All without having ceased her chattering.  
Her _unbearable worthless chatter. _

You know that the antiseptic is necessarily, or else the _nasty bacteria_ will come and get you.  
You know that it's medical alcohol to _tend the wounds of children_ and it doesn't actually sting at all.  
The nurse is talking to you as if you were some runny-nosed four-year-old.  
Perhaps because she's suddenly realised, this topsy-turvy morning, that you're not even capable of buttoning your own shirt by yourself?

It's not your fault if, this morning, the hand on the clock found its way to the eight despite the fact that _he wasn't there anymore..._  
It's not your fault if that clock-hand had made you believe that you could exist in a in a universe where he'd removed the rival's mask and stopped cursing your existence, _even if only for one minute..._  
It's not your fault if the extreme repetition of those events had been enough to make you somehow believe that nothing would be able to subtract it from your life.

...and it's not even your fault if now you're trying to cling to this falsehood with tooth and nail.

"Near...? Oh—Near!"

The nurse has just applied the last band-aid when, as in a raptus, you feel her lift your chin rudely, turning your face to her.

Just look at you...  
_Crying._  
You're crying.  
Years have passed since that last happened.  
You'd barely recognised your own tears…  
But there they are, to blur your vision.  
It isn't just the umpteenth universe created by your mind to keep you company.

"Oh God, Near! But... did I hurt you that badly!?"

She pulls out a handkerchief from somewhere, dabbing at the droplets invading your face.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I didn't think it would hurt that much!"

She's asking herself if she's made an error.  
And yet, no-one had ever protested about that antiseptic before...

_...where does she find the arrogance to claim those tears for herself?!_  
_Does she really think you were crying... for her?_

The emotions condense.  
Confusion gives way to anger.  
Her ceaseless voice is piercing your eardrums.  
Your hands hurt.  
Something inside your chest is hurting even more.  
Your eyes keep on blurring.  
Tears stream.  
And her words become more convulsive...

How to make her understand that these _damned fingers_ are the last thing on your mind?

"Near...? Near? Near? What's the matter, Near?! W-what's wrong? Near...? _Near...?_"

Shut up.  
Shut up.  
Shut up.  
SHUT UP!

Bandaged hands pressing with force against your ears.  
Wet eyes, sealed shut like never before.  
Knees against your chest.  
Your feet push against the surface of the chair, hoping vainly that this hellish universe might also vanish in the turn of sixty seconds.  
You push your feet again.  
Push, push, push.  
It's like you become almost as one with the chair's back.  
But the chair can't bear it; it loses balance and smashes to the ground, taking your small body with it.

"NEAR!"

The intensity of her voice increases.  
The noise becomes gigantic.  
_You were wrong about everything. _  
Again and again, you mistook it all.  
It's your new habit.  
You ought to give yourself a reason.

You stay on the floor, curling into yourself like an earthworm feigning death.  
You feel her hands shake you a couple of times, even while she continues to call your name: once, twice, three times, four.  
Heavy.  
_Your body becomes frighteningly heavy. _

Helpless, the woman leaves the room at a run. She flings herself out like a prisoner who, by an unexpected stroke of luck, has found the door to her cell inexplicably open.

"I need help in the sick-bay! Call Roger! _Call Roger!" _

You heave a brief sigh of relief when you realise that the distance between you has managed to make her hysterical voice fade out almost completely.

_And everything ends..._  
_Another universe which is born, grown, and dead in the space of a few minutes..._  
This time you are also able to infer the presence of the silence that, like a mild sleeping gas, has put an end to everything...  
This, together with the coolness of the floor tiles against your cheeks, and the slight hum of the neon light hanging from the ceiling, is exactly what you need more of…

It won't last long.  
Soon the nurse will return together with Roger, and others, to infest the room with their voices, shouts, and brusque motions...  
And from there will recommence yet another insignificant universe...

You open your eyes slowly, choking back the sobs, which are growing further apart anyway.  
One world is already dead. Within a few minutes another will rise from its ashes…  
But, like all the others which have succeeded it since then, it would be a world that is the opposite of your expectations.

You watch your tears running like transparent little mice along the curve of your face, only to slide happily onto the tiles...  
Inside those drops you can make out a reflection. A reflection multiplied in each and every one of them.  
And it's yours, but your face is so distorted that it could be confused with someone else's.

For a second, you have the impression that you see _him_ there, reflected in them...  
You scrutinise his gloomy face.  
You scrutinise his eyes. There's something strange about them.  
Is he doing it as well?  
_Mello... is he crying too?_

_No..._

You close your eyes when you realise your blunder.

"You're much better now, aren't you, Near...?"

Yes.  
It's true.  
The spasms and tremors have calmed.  
So have the tears and the sobs, almost, and even that oppressive sensation in your chest seems much more bearable.

Actually, you'd felt immediately much better after Roger and the nurse made you drink that glass of water.  
Probably they'd mixed something strange in it; your mouth feels tainted by the odd after-taste of something vaguely synthetic.

"There's nothing for you to worry about. We're passing through a difficult time recently, _so many things_ have happened and... we're all a little bit tired and anxious. But it's over now..."

You look at him with an ill-concealed indifference, even as he tucks you in lovingly beneath the covers and talks like a good, doting grandpa. He even goes so far as to offer you the teddy bear lying at the foot of the bed.  
You hug it into your arms automatically, almost as if you hadn't been expecting anything else.

You pretend not to notice the mess of people standing around beyond the door to your room, intent upon watching, with critical expressions, the unusual little theatre in which you, for a time, have been the unquestioned protagonist.

"In a little while we'll bring you something nice to eat; you've been working on an empty stomach all day and that's no good at all. In the meantime, however, try and rest. After a nice little snooze you'll feel all better; you'll see."

Roger waits, perhaps for some sign of affirmation on your part, and maybe that the reason he's staring at you with such concern from behind his glasses.

_...poor deluded fellow._

He doesn't know he's never going to receive an answer from your side.  
Right now, responding to him is the last thing you want…  
He sighs, acknowledging unfailing defeat.

He gets up from the edge of your bed where he's been seated, turning himself towards the door and towards the invasive band of curious onlookers.  
In the beginning he'd tried to ignore their presence, as if they didn't bother him in the least;  
But now, when he'd realised that they hadn't even left space for him to pass through, he'd understood that it was perhaps a bit much for someone in his position.  
After all, he was the director..

"Get back to whatever you were doing, go on! There's nothing to see here!"

His order wasn't very convincing.  
But it fulfilled its purpose, anyway.  
...or almost did.

«It's his fault.»

_Matt..._

«Be quiet, Matt.»

«What's the point? I can't not think it, Roger. It's his fault.»

«No it isn't.»

«Yes it is, Roger! Everyone here thinks so! And even if you'll never admit it out loud, you know perfectly well that we're right!»

«To place all the responsibility for Mello having left us upon Near might make the rest of us feel less guilty, Matt. But the reality is that Mello alone knows the real reason why he decided to leave Wammy's House. He isn't an idiot. And, as to the rest of it, even more than becoming L's heir, he was only interested in proving to himself and everyone else that he was Number One.»

«And isn't that the same thing?!»

«Absolutely not.»

The answer given hadn't satisfied him.  
Not in the least.  
And yet he hadn't summoned up a response..

Like a timid little kitty whose food had just been stolen by a ruthless, fat cat, Matt realised that he can't do anything but turn on his heels and abandon the battle arena to avoid continuing such useless, masochistic bickering…

"Near…?"

_Suffocating._

You'd closed your eyes, convinced he'd gone away.  
And instead Roger was still in the doorway.  
You don't want to hear his voice again.  
You don't want to hear anyone's voice.  
You decided to keep your eyes closed, feigning sleep until he left.  
The pretence seems to work.  
Or maybe he just wants you to believe it does.

He advances back into the darkness of your room, coming to a stop before you.  
You don't know why he's standing there, still and quiet as a tree.  
He seems almost fossilised.

"Likely as not, they won't easily stop believing that bitter lie," he says softly. "That's how people are; open to believe anything, so long as they can feel the least weight of guilt when it comes time to account for their own responsibilities…"

"………"

"Anyway, their opinion isn't important. I suspect it's sufficient for you to know _that he_ will be on your side, in any case..."

You feel the air shift.  
He's moved.  
You open one eye very slowly, following his movements as best you can.  
You see him lean towards the night-stand beside your bed.  
He puts something down.  
You close your eye again before he can detect your farce.

"He asked me to deliver this to you when he would already be far away. He said he didn't want you to forget the face of your '_eternal rival_'… that lad really was incredible…" A bitter-sweet laugh escaped him.

You don't understand.  
You immediately regret having pretended to sleep.  
You want to know what he's talking about.

_Go._  
_Go away._  
_Go away, go away, go away, Roger. _

Your psychological conditioning seems to work...  
You hear his slow steps heading towards the door.

"Oh, I forgot: he also suggested that I replace all the buttons on your shirts with press-studs. When I asked him what he meant by that, he didn't want to explain."

He doesn't add anything more.  
He finally reaches the blessed door, and closes it behind him.  
You ought to have restrained your curiosity for a handful more seconds, but this is one of the rare occasions in which your instinct has prevailed upon your reason.  
You reach towards the bedside table.  
You switch on the lamp.  
Your eyes widen.

_Mello. _

For a heartbeat you'd half-believed you had him right there before your eyes, smiling with his usual, argumentative smile.  
And instead it was only a photograph...

_That was the shortest of the universes you'd ever tumbled into. _

You cradle the photograph between your hands.  
You know that picture.  
You recall well the day on which it was taken.  
You'd only been at Wammy's House for the space of a month.  
A group photograph and an individual picture for each child.  
That was what Roger had decided on that day...  
It was the first time.  
It was first time that that one-minute universe had materialised, before it had become a daily habit...

_He'd blocked your path, in the middle of the hallway, when you'd been passing his room. _

«Hey...»

«…....»

«Do you plan on making an idiot of yourself in front of the whole institute today too?»

«…....»

«Dammit, did Roger forget to stick a mirror in your room or something?»

«No. There's a big mirror in my room.»

«So you could use it, don't you think? Just look at you! I don't want such a shabby rival. You look like a bloody tramp.»

«I'm sorry.»

«…....»

«…....»

He huffs.

«I take it I'm going to have to do everything myself, then? Come in! Roger had the splendid idea of getting a photographer in and… the film'd burn up if they snapped you looking like this!»

He'd emphasised it.  
He'd repeated it every time: "_Watch yourself: one word to anyone and I'll send you to class without teeth! I'm only helping because I don't want a rival who looks like an idiot!"_

You weren't even in a position where you'd known whether to believe him or not.  
That universe was a habit.  
A world where Mello stroked your cold skin with the living hands of a playground child.  
A world where Mello smiled in between cruel sneers and biting little words which, once inside your mind, had the strange skill of changing their meanings to the complete opposites of what he'd said.

And now his photograph…  
A photograph that takes you right back, to the very beginning of it all.  
The beginning of a world upon which, only now, you can pass judgement…  
Yes.  
Now you truly understand…

_Nothing. _

_That one-minute world was worthless._

This is your conclusion.  
It wasn't worth anything at all.

You don't miss those moments.  
The hands of the clock. The light against the blinds. The repetitive gestures.

You only miss one thing: not an entire world, but a single element of it.  
His presence would have been everything.  
His presence would have been the true universe, the true universe you never wanted to leave.  
With him, even the emptiest, narrowest of universe would have seemed utterly irreplaceable.

You would have been content to feel his hate for all eternity.  
_If only_ there were a way to get him back beside you, then any universe would have been fine.  
One of aversion. One of silence. One of lies and betrayals.  
Any old universe, dammit! Any old one!

_But you'd better make the best of it._  
The world you have left is a second-rate world.  
Exactly; it's a world rejected. Just how he'd felt all that time…

You only have a photograph,  
your memories,  
… and the knowledge that you were important to him in some way…  
Three elements which, combined together, can give birth to only one kind of world.  
One single, indisputable world which you yourself don't know the length of, but something in the air seems to suggest it will be anything but short…

_Welcome to the absent universe, Near._  
_Make yourself at home._

**THE END**

**Many, many, many thanks to Jenwryn for translating this in English for me! m(_ _)m**  
**It must have been excruciating, really! Thank you!! __**  
**Many thanks also to Chamyl & Tierfal for beting! **  
**Hope you like it! *shame***

**Rei-chan**


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